The FIFA Appeal Committee has decided to reject the appeals lodged by both the Uruguayan player Luis Suarez and the Uruguayan FA, and to confirm the decision rendered by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee on 25 June 2014 in its entirety.

The terms of the decision taken by the FIFA Appeal Committee were communicated to the player and the Uruguayan FA today.

The relevant decision is not yet final and binding, i.e. an appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) is still possible (cf. art. 67 par. 1 of the FIFA Statutes) by the player and/or the Uruguayan FA, subject to certain conditions.

As mentioned in FIFA’s statement, Suarez and the Uruguayan FA can still decide to appeal further tp to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

My surprise was that Suarez will be sold to Barcelona in the next week or so and I expected Barcelona to appeal saying that they are being unfairly punished as Suarez was not even their player when he took a bite out of Chiellini. Thus the ban unfairly punishes them.

So as it stands, not only can Suarez not train with Liverpool or Barcelona, he cannot even enter their training facilities until late October. Which means that when his ban is over, it will probably take Suarez weeks before he is fully fit and ready to play at the highest level making his debut in a Barcelona shirt more likely to take place in 2015 than 2014.